The Nearness of You

by Amanda Eyre Ward

  “Nothing. Nothing, honey. But I need to speak with you. Right away.”

  “Okaaaay,” said Zane. “Are you giving me the Mazda?”

  I laughed. I’d promised Zane my old Mazda when I could afford a new car. He’d already told me he was going to use spray paint to turn the rusted dents in its body into flames. “Not a chance,” I said. “But can you skip practice today? It’s important.”

  “I don’t know, Mom,” said Zane.

  “I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

  “Can we go to Subway?”

  “Sure, Zane.” I hung up, smiling.

  It’s hard to believe how much your brother eats. It began when he was twelve, his “race to the moon,” as I called it. For that birthday, he’d invited ten friends to sleep over, telling me he’d much rather a stack of rental movies and Costco pizzas than a party at Balls to the Wall or Wackenhammer’s Arcade, places he knew I couldn’t afford. He’s thoughtful like that—and has never seemed embarrassed to bring his rich friends over. They sprawl across the Goodwill couch, eat bowls and bowls of popcorn (the cheapest snack in the world, even if you splurge on butter), and drink Rite Aid–brand cola. If I make chocolate-chip cookies, they literally stand up and cheer. Sometimes a sweaty boy hugs me.

  For Zane’s sixteenth birthday, Jayne and I scoured the Craigslist ads for a Nintendo, finally locating a used one in Falmouth. Zane was thrilled to find it next to his stack of birthday pancakes, and instead of complaining that the Nintendo was a decade old, he called it his “vintage gaming system,” and his friends played along, pretending Pong and Frogger were just as thrilling as their fancier games.

  Your father and Suzette had kept their promise to leave me alone. They didn’t know about Zane, and while sometimes I thought he could use a father’s input (and a father’s money), I was too afraid to reveal any more than the basics to Zane: yes, he had once had a father. His father had been extremely smart and artistic; he’d taught me about the painters in all the art books I’d bought Zane at Barnes & Noble. Yes, Zane looked like his father. No, Zane couldn’t meet his father, because his father was dead.

  What else could I say? If I told Zane any version of the truth, he might leave me. Who wouldn’t choose Suzette and Hyland and their enormous mansion? You probably had the best of everything: handmade wooden toys, smocked dresses, brand-new books with no missing pages or crayon scribbles in the margins. Beautiful shoes.

  So I fibbed. A tragic fishing trip accident, I told Zane: no survivors. When he asked for a rod and reel, I bought it (my heart sinking at his sweet attempts to commune with a mirage). When he hung around the harbor, even getting a summer job at the dock, I said nothing, rising at dawn to drop him off, rinsing out his bait buckets and Goodwill galoshes. I bit my lip when he began to get tattoos of oceanic disaster scenes: towering waves, rising ships, dark skies.

  And now, on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, I was going to have to tell him the truth.

  There is no good way to tell your son you are a liar. I was prepared for Zane to be furious, appalled. I was assuming he would stand up and walk out of Subway. I thought he’d cry. Instead, your brother listened and continued eating his Meatball Marinara sandwich as I told him everything: the agreement I’d made with your father and Suzette; the way I’d run to New Orleans; the night I gave you to the Kendalls and drove away with him. Zane knew the rest. We’d ended up in Hyannis, where he’d grown up doted on by a teenager and a youngish single mother. We hadn’t been able to afford tennis lessons, sailing camp, or fancy running shoes. He’d worn used clothes. We loved him.

  I finished the story. Zane finished chewing, wiped red sauce from his lips with a napkin. “So my dad’s alive?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Can I meet him?” asked Zane.

  I nodded again, a sour taste in my mouth. Zane took my hand. “Mom, what?” he said.

  It was hard to put into words. I was embarrassed. I told him I was afraid he’d choose your father over me. I didn’t want him to leave me.

  “Oh, Moms,” said Zane. He squeezed my hand and let it go. “I belong to you, come on,” he said.

  I’d raised him. I should have known.

  —

  When Zane had finished eating, I told him you were missing. “Apparently, she’s looking for me,” I said.

  “What’s her name again?” said Zane, pulling out his iPhone (barely paid for every month, but I made do).

  “Eloise. Eloise Kendall,” I said.

  He pecked away for a few minutes. I sipped my coffee. Then he said, “Yeah, she’s on lovepages. Everybody is.”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “I mean everybody young,” said Zane. “No offense, Mom.”

  “None taken,” I said. He peered at his phone. “People post pictures and whatever,” he said. “Oh, fuck. I mean oh, no. Look, Mom.”

  He handed me the phone. On the screen was a blurry photograph of the ocean. “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Look in the distance,” said Zane, using his fingers to enlarge the photo. “That’s Millway Marina. She’s here. She’s by the water.”

  “Oh, honey,” I said. We stood, Zane packing up the last of his sandwich to eat in the car, and we ran across the lot. In minutes, we reached the marina. I parked, and Zane leapt out. “Now what?” I said. “Now what?”

  “I’ll find her,” said Zane, taking off. I stood by the car, shivering, watching him run, my strong boy in his neon shorts and a cheap windbreaker.

  “Go ask at the ticket desk!” called Zane. “She must have taken that picture from out on a boat!”

  I sprinted toward the Whale Watcher Cruises desk, dropping my coffee cup on the ground. But when I reached the ticket window, I found it was shuttered for the day. The last cruise had ended at four. “Eloise!” I cried, hoping you could hear me, hoping you could sense me. I began to jog along the water. I knew you were near. I knew you were in trouble. And then I heard a voice call out.

  “Mommy!”

  For a minute, I thought it was you.

  “Mommy!”

  But the voice was Zane.

  “Mommy!” he cried, and I followed the sound. Down an alley by the boardwalk, I found my son. He was kneeling on the ground, holding a teenage girl in his arms. The girl was thin, deathly pale, her long curly hair the same shade as Zane’s. The thought came to me unbidden: They could be twins.

  “Mommy,” said Zane, “I found her.”

  21

  Hyland

  Sometime in the night, Hyland stood up, needing escape from the hospital room, if only for a few minutes. “I’m going to go find some food,” he said. “Want anything?”

  Suzette shook her head. She held one of Eloise’s hands. Eloise breathed in and out, her eyes closed. Was she going to die? Hyland couldn’t bear it. He simply could not. He walked toward the doorway and exited.

  As he had hoped, the boy was there. He looked so much like Hyland as a teenager that it was a shock. The most wonderful shock in the world. He looked up from his video game when Hyland approached. Dorrie was asleep with her head on his shoulder. “Sir,” he said, stiffening.

  “You don’t have to call me sir,” said Hyland.

  The boy smiled nervously. “What should I call you, then?” he asked.

  Hyland almost said it: Dad. But he was not the boy’s father any more than Dorrie was Eloise’s mother. “How about Hyland?” he said.

  “OK,” said the boy. “How is…” he said. He swallowed, then said, “How is my sister?”

  “The same.”

  “I didn’t even know I had a sister. I didn’t know, until today.” He paused. “But maybe I did kind of know. Somehow, I did kind of know.”

  Hyland thought of many things to say, but none of them were kind to Dorrie. He nodded.

  “Maybe I could…maybe when this is over…” said the boy.

  Hyland fought the urge to grab the boy, to hold on to him. “Maybe you could come visit us,” said Hyland. “I hope you
will.”

  “That would be awesome,” said the boy. Quietly, he said, “I didn’t know I had…I didn’t know about you either, sir. Hyland, I mean.”

  “I’m so sorry about that,” said Hyland.

  “Yeah.”

  “But we know now,” said Hyland. The boy grinned. They looked at each other for a moment. “You play hockey?” said Hyland.

  “Yes, and soccer. And basketball,” said the boy.

  “I played hockey, too.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Words failed them both. The hallway was bright. The boy looked back at his game. Hyland put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. A boy who played hockey, a son. And for Eloise, if she made it, when she made it, a brother.

  22

  Suzette

  Who is her mother?

  When Suzette was alone with Eloise, as the hours passed and she did not wake, the nurse’s question seemed to hang in the air. Suzette had been a frightened child. With the strength of her own will, she had made herself into a doctor and a wife. But another force had changed her when Eloise arrived. It had felt like being burned, being hammered, slowly finding the right shape. Being forged into a mother, a good one or bad—and maybe she was both—was the hardest thing Suzette had ever done. Or more precisely, the hardest thing that had ever been done to her. It was still so hard.

  There wasn’t any answer, at least not one Suzette could understand. But the metaphor of remaining still next to Eloise, of contemplating the worst possibilities but not fleeing, this seemed a start. The mother is the one who sits and waits. And even as her heart cries out for her to save herself, to run, she does not.

  The mother is the one who stays in the room.

  23

  Eloise

  My mom told me once about how a baby’s heart forms, like origami in the womb. Certain cells are programmed to be the cells of the heart; they form a long tube that pumps the blood. Then somehow, this tube just knows how to turn and loop itself, fusing into a tiny, perfect organ. “Isn’t it just amazing that it works?” Mom used to say, shaking her head in wonder.

  This is what it felt like as I found my way to consciousness after my overdose—a twisting and turning, looping through what seemed like a dark tunnel. I felt as if someone at the end of the tunnel was guiding me, showing me how to rise up above a darkness that was both beckoning and final.

  I opened my eyes. I was in some sort of hospital room. It was dim and blurry. A figure came into focus slowly, its edges becoming clear, then the fact that it was a person. Her expression was soft, her red hair loose.

  It felt like an impossible dream. I had come so far, tried to hurt her in every way, kicked so hard, lit fire to every bridge.

  “Mom?” I said. “Is that you?”

  She leaned toward me. And though I was probably on morphine, and maybe that was why I felt the hole inside me grow a little smaller, I suddenly understood that if I just kept looking at her, I might be able to find a way back home.

  She smiled. She put her hands—they were warm—around my face.

  “Mom?” I said.

  And Suzette said, “Yes.”

  For the mothers

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks and love to my family of friends in Austin, Texas, and Ouray, Colorado: Clay Smith, Paula Disbrowe, Caroline Wilson, Moyara Pharis, Mary Helen Specht, Dalia Azim, Kathy Blackwell, Owen Egerton, Doug Dorst, Mary Maltbie, Cory Ryan, Erin Kinard, Alexia Rodriguez, Pam Parma, Bridget Brady, Tina Donahoo, Stacey Gardner, Rachel Wright, Jaye Joseph, Jenny Hart, Ben Tisdel, Ben Fountain, Dominic Smith, and Emily Hovland.

  Dr. Hanoch Patt was kind enough to answer all my questions about the heart, and he is a treasured friend and pancake date, as well. Thank you, Hanoch.

  I am so grateful to the team at 1745 Broadway, especially Gina Centrello, Jennifer Hershey, Kara Cesare (whose conception of this novel as a triangle missing one side was astonishing and so helpful), Cindy Murray, Benjamin Dreyer, Emma Caruso, and Kim Hovey.

  As always, thank you to my extended family: the Meckels, the Toans, the Westleys, the Bennigsons, and the McKays.

  Thank you, F. E. Toan, for listening when I told you I was stuck, and for giving me the words of wisdom that helped me to finish this novel.

  Michelle Tessler, my agent and friend, helped me talk through this book as we hiked the Blue Lakes Trail in Colorado. Michelle, I’m looking forward to another fifteen years of conversations about love, mountains, and books with you.

  My heart is for my family: WAM, THM, and NRM. Your crazy love makes my life a joy.

  I remember when I first saw Tip Meckel’s smile at a party in Missoula, Montana. He lit up the room and continues to be the light of my life.

  BY AMANDA EYRE WARD

  The Nearness of You

  The Same Sky

  Close Your Eyes

  Love Stories in This Town

  Forgive Me

  How to Be Lost

  Sleep Toward Heaven

  About the Author

  AMANDA EYRE WARD is the critically acclaimed author of six novels, including How to Be Lost, Close Your Eyes, and The Same Sky. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her family.

  amandaward.com

  @amandaeyreward

  Find Amanda Eyre Ward on Facebook

  What’s next on

  your reading list?

  Discover your next

  great read!

  * * *

  Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.

  Sign up now.